


Smelting the Silver Mask

by H2erg



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 11:18:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20096404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/H2erg/pseuds/H2erg
Summary: Both hunting the Dragon before he returned, Lanfear and Moiraine crossed paths in peace before they met in war.Lanfear, ambitious, selfish, and tired, never thought she was capable of being redeemed before the end. Playing her role as a warrior of the Shadow because she has nothing else left, going through the motions because she sold her soul, new acquaintances bring out parts of herself she thought she had left behind in the age that was.





	1. Birth and Rebirth

Two great powers are entering the world. And in the Tower, in Tar Valon, one lesser power is about to leave it: Gitara Moroso, who with her last breath will herald what has arrived.

Details twist and merge as Gitara’s experience blurs across space and time. Her mind is still sharp but Foretelling is confusing even for the young and strong, and she is neither. All that is clear to her is her task: to find the words that will guide us safely from the present to the future.

Outside the Amyrlin’s study, a pair of Accepted took turns staring at the single seat in the waiting area. They were rivals, too close in power to be friends, but that will change. The best of their generation, their achievements made them confident. They didn’t worry about why they had been summoned. They wouldn’t always be this young.

Outside the shining walls the heat of battle melted the snow. In the thin air near the impossible summit of the Dragonmount, with the world a vertiginous map in blue tint below, a young soldier of Illian, far from home and regretting ever leaving it, came across a soldier of the enemy lying wounded in meager shelter. He inched closer, ready to attack and claim the shelter for his own. Close enough to see the enemy’s shape, he froze; it was a woman.

And deep underground, in a dusty corner of the Tower’s secret archive, a ceramic token wrapped in silk and linen lay ancient, vital, and forgotten. It clattered on its shelf as if in the leading edge of an earthquake. Rats froze until it stopped then hurried to their hiding places in the pitch-black storeroom.

The Illianer soldier was as dangerous in his own way as the enemy. With his sword half drawn, he climbed quietly. She was well concealed; he needed to find a place where he could watch her without being seen. He prayed there was no ambush.

The woman was hyperventilating. She grit her teeth against the pain and hissed. The soldier gripped his sword tighter. He could see her now; she wasn’t just wounded.

The study door opened from inside, the Amyrlin opening it herself. Gitara was with her, sitting, waiting in a plain chair with a cup of something hot.

Gitara was usually evil to them – not mean, just carelessly honest as the old can be. But today her eyes lingered on them, savored the unbent bearing of their youth like the last sip of wine, admired and inhaled before it was drunk. A weight left her when they entered. She was wearing her best: a blue cloak in the old style, from when she was just a Blue. Her hair was groomed and arranged.

Tamra Ospenya, the Amyrlin, had also been Blue, something that mattered even though one was supposed to leave behind one’s color. “I’ve asked them here,” the Amyrlin said. “Now what?”

Gitara suffered a tremor. Mild, like the leading edge of an earthquake. Her chair shook, rattling against the hard floor. Far below, down ramps and staircases, the same tremor pulsed through the carefully wrapped ceramic token.

She dropped her cup and everyone in the room jumped. Gitara didn’t react, for she had seen this, and she knew a louder sound was coming. To her ears the shattering was elongated, like wind chimes, as it echoed backwards and forwards in time. The fragments of porcelain lay in a circle on the floor like a broken disc.

The soldier, when he saw the woman’s condition, dropped his sword. Her eyes snapped to the clatter of metal on rock. She stared at the sword. By the mores of her adopted people, she hated the man for carrying it. But in this place, at this time, she was two people at once. Someone she had been before honored this weapon and was glad it was him that had come. The union of her two selves envied him.

He fetched water. His cloak, striped with other men’s blood, was warm and clean on the inside; it would do for a blanket. They didn’t dare start a fire.

“You’re from Illian?”

He looked down at his colors. “Illian was enlisting. By birth, I’m Andoran. Have you been there?” As it was out of his mouth he wished he could take it back. “Stupid question,” he said. “Of course you haven’t.”

“You’d be surprised,” she said, smiling at a secret joke. It was the first smile the soldier had seen on her. “Is that where you’ll go back to?” He nodded, and she copied his nod. “Andor is not a bad place,” she said.

“Are you alright?” one of the Accepted asked the old Keeper. She was the prettier of the two, and from money, but she had learned not to rely on those things here. In strength the two Accepted were equal and that did matter.

Gitara’s shaking spells came closer together now and were more intense. She gripped the arms of her chair and waited for one to pass. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “Soon the trembling will stop. For me,” she said, smiling at a secret joke. It was the first smile the Accepted had seen on her in their years of training here. “For you, it has barely begun.”

“I’ve called them,” the Amyrlin said. “What did you want to tell me? Surely it’s time to start.”

“Not quite time,” Gitara said. “Why do the young always hurry?”

The contractions came closer together now and were more intense. The soldier wrapped his palms in linen from his shirt so her strong grip didn’t cut him again. He knew blood and she was bleeding too much. Her wound was difficult; he did what he knew how.

The obvious questions went unasked between them. Instead, she wanted to know about his home and his family. His profession, before he was a soldier. What it was like to grow up in his town and what were the values there. Then she couldn’t speak.

The soldier knew the things one learns on a farm and he was more help than she expected. He timed things, felt how things were oriented without being too intrusive, and told her she was doing well.

The linen wrappings dissolved, a thousand waiting years passing in an instant. The silk burned and dripped as if soaked in oil, briefly lighting the dark storeroom, setting on fire some nearby paper. A loud clash sounded, like a hammer breaking a stack of dishes, like a trapped animal trying to escape.

Gitara fell from her chair as if struck. She landed on her hands and knees. Her wrist was bruised, ugly, probably broken. The two Accepted hurried to offer Healing and then remembered they weren’t in charge here.

“Now,” Gitara said, “listen. It’s starting.”

“Push,” the soldier said. “Now, push. Once more.” His voice was gentle but urgent. The woman was losing strength.

Events continued to their conclusions.

The man walked down the mountain, his hands raw from building a cairn of rocks on the cold peak. Tightly bundled at his breast, he carried something warm, wrapped in the enemy uniform of brown and beige. He reclaimed his sword but the warrior woman would no longer envy him it; he can no longer fight in this war. She might envy him other things.

The Amyrlin pulled a shawl over Gitara Moroso’s face. The two Accepted were shocked by what they heard and can’t speak yet. The Amyrlin swore them to secrecy. Gitara charged them with a task: the plain one will support from the shadows. The pretty one will venture forth.

Something was unleashed on the world today; her quest is to find it, to join it, not to neutralize it, but to guide it, comfort it, and help it to leave the world in the right place, at the right time.

In fact two things were unleashed today, but the girls don’t know that and Gitara didn’t specify.

* * *

In the storeroom, the fire has died. The ceramic token, disc-shaped before, lies shattered on the hard floor, the crack like thunder still chasing its echoes through the darkness. Among the shards a woman lies, curled tight, a different kind of birth than what took place on the mount.

She takes a gasping breath – not her first but her first in an age. Her eyes open in the dark. Blind, she panics, groping around, hurting herself where she hits the shelves. She remembers how to make light.

She slowly comprehends her surroundings. She is naked, and looks around for clothes – she finds a precious object wrapped in a cloth of silver that’s to her liking, and takes the cloth, letting the object fall and break.

She picks up a fragment of the broken disc and does something that should have destroyed it; nothing happens. She remembers something of who imprisoned her and suspects something of how she came to break out.

Instructions are in her mind, she realizes, in a familiar way that one never gets used to. A flash of light turns once, twice, and the silver-wrapped woman, like Gitara Moroso, like the Aiel warrior maiden, is gone.


	2. Mirrors of the Wheel

Lanfear didn’t care for the portal stones; to her they were a puzzle not worth solving. Once she understood the ‘how’, the ‘why’ had little extra value. Punching a hole to the source of all human trouble suited her better than visiting pale reflections of reality.

She pretended to be guessing as she pointed out the symbols. She would pretend he couldn’t channel for now, as long as _he_ admitted it to himself, and used it. The sky boiled overhead, threatening rain; she missed the mild seasons of her home.

“Mirrors of the Wheel,” she heard herself saying, and wished she could take it back. Of course that book hadn’t survived. The Alantin, Ogier they were called, made much about it and she nodded politely. She didn’t care if they found her out. She had many disguises.

* * *

Much earlier:

“Mirrors of the Wheel,” she said to the librarian. “Wheel. Mirrors of the.”

“I heard you,” the librarian said. The palace library at Cairhien was nothing on Tar Valon but it was much more trouble for her to get in there. And sometimes even this place surprised her with a manuscript she thought lost.

“We have it,” the librarian said. Lanfear nodded calmly, secretly thrilled. “That is, we have a book of notes about the book. The original is lost.” Well, that would do as well. She was just prodding her own memory of a book she’d studied before the war.

“How did you know that so quickly?” she asked him.

He smiled foolishly and his glasses fogged with sweat. Warm, slanted sunlight flashed from their steel rims. Lanfear knew she was pretty, not that it mattered with this poor man. “It’s out, and overdue back.”

“Who has it?”

“We don’t share –”. He was weak-willed. She could get it from him without resorting to force. She let it go.

“What about this one.” She slid across a paper so she wouldn’t have to repeat herself. Her handwriting, perfect in her ancient youth, was messy from years of research, of absent writing in notebooks. But the librarian made do.

“Biography,” he read, “of Jarna Malari.” He looked up. “The one who was tortured? I’ll look.”

He went into a back room. While he was gone a Cairhienin noble came up to the desk. She carried the intolerable confidence of the young and would channel one day – no, already had. She was strong, too, by modern standards. Lanfear had her own ability masked.

“There’s a line,” Lanfear said, not knowing why she bothered.

“I’m here to pick up,” the noble said, not looking at her.

“This is the circulation desk. The line is to pick up.”

The noble had a retort on her tongue but the librarian came back. “Ah, you,” he said to the noble. “Perfect timing. This patron wants Mirrors of the Wheel. You brought it, yes? It’s only overdue a day.”

The noble blinked. “No, I’m here to pick up. The Jarna book?”

“I can’t give you the Jarna book until you return the other.” The noble’s thumb seemed to accidentally brush her collar, incidentally showing off the Great Serpent ring on its chain around her neck. “I’m sorry,” the librarian said, “the rules apply even to kings.”

“Give it to _me_ then,” Lanfear said, hoping to scrape a win from the situation.

The librarian looked at her over his glasses. “There’s a line, miss.”

“Are you open much longer?,” the noble asked. “I have to go back and forth to home.” She looked at the sky. “No, there’s no time. I’ll need to give it to you tomorrow.”

“Switch places with me,” Lanfear said. “Let him give me the book. I’ll give it back to you tomorrow.”

“Early bird gets the worm.” The noble, making up with arrogance what she lacked in height, pretended to look down on her. “You’ll have it when I’m done and not before.”

Lanfear had other work in the library. She came back the next day. She knew when the noble returned as if someone had rung a bell; few now had this one’s potential, and Lanfear being what she was could detect it from a great distance. She met her at the circulation desk.

They glared at each other while the librarian got the Jarna book, growing angrier by the moment. “What do you want the Jarna book for?” Moiraine finally asked, feeling a need to cut the tension.

“Just filling in the gaps in my history,” Lanfear said. True, but not the whole truth. Secretly she sympathized with Jarna, not least because she clashed with that mad peacock Ishamael. “Of course there’s no forgiving what she did,” she said, to be safe. She didn’t know what Jarna had done, but she knew her allegiance.

“Then you know what she was,” the noble said.

Lanfear remembered they had covered up the incident, and felt a tingle of caution. “What she was?” She tried to play innocent but it didn’t suit her; instead she came across as testing, verifying that the noble could be trusted with a sensitive topic.

“She wasn’t a Gray in the end,” the noble said. Lanfear nodded and kept silent to give her rope. “There’s no _defending_ what she did,” the noble finally said. “But forgiving? Sympathizing? There’s still much we don’t know about her life.”

“You’re not saying you’d –”

“No,” the noble said. “I doubt I’d ever be turned.”

They all said that; Lanfear memorized this one’s face for future reference. “I myself don’t understand her at all. Why pick a fight you can’t win?”

“Better to be weak and fight, I think,” the noble said. “Not that I’m weak.”

They each got the book they had come for. Lanfear hurried out. She felt _something_ manipulate the darkness nearby. Shadowspawn could be temperamental if kept waiting, and she didn’t want an incident. Trollocs she could do without. Myrddraal were blunt instruments at best. She could do without Aginor and his meddling.

A workman from the palace had wandered into the alley where it appeared. It wasn’t attacking yet, just staring, but they lived for the hunt. The man was frozen. “Go on,” she said to the workman. “Get out of here.” He couldn’t move.

The Myrddraal sniffed. “You’re no channeler, Lady,” it said. “If you mean to offer your life in trade –”

She hated to touch the True Power. Saidar was the only thing that made her feel whole anymore, and this ruined the aftertaste. At least she didn’t have to use it. Just contact, the hint of darkness about her, let the Myrddraal know who was in charge here.

“Go on,” she told it. “Get out of here.” It faded out, a trick she didn’t understand, a trick her research couldn’t probe yet. Perhaps, after the war, there would be time –

“You saved him.” It was the noble, wearing a blue cloak she hadn’t had inside, framed by light in the mouth of the alley.

Her Warder caught up with her. “Wait for me before you –”

“No,” the noble said, putting it together. “You commanded it. You’re a –” She stopped.

“We have to take her in,” the Warder said.

Lanfear stood still. They posed no threat to her, but she didn’t want to leave a trail. She watched, and listened, haunted eyes waiting for judgment, neutral mouth testing them, ready to curve into a frown when they failed.

“She saved that man,” the noble said. “And we have other work.”

“You mean to let her go?” the Warder said.

“She is what she is,” the noble said, “and she has done what she has done.” Lanfear’s frown twitched. “But we have not seen it,” the noble said. “And this, today, was no crime.” Lanfear’s watching eyes widened in surprise.

“You would compel me?” the Warder asked.

The noble shook her head, troubled. “I would ask,” she said. “I stand by our bargain. But in this my judgment rules, remember.”

“There is no clearer line than between Light and Shadow.” The Warder shook his head. “I don’t trust this.”

“Go,” the noble said. “He won’t stop you.”

Carefully, wide eyes watching her almost-captors, giving respectful space to the Warder’s sword, shocked by the outcome, Lanfear edged out of the alley and hid until she could feel them leave, then Traveled away from there.


	3. Mierin

Of course she felt it when the archer was ripped from the dream. She had made a study long ago of the so-called horn heroes, jealous of the length of their memory, fascinated by their close connection to the Pattern, worried about them as enemies of her plans.

That fool Ishamael thought the horn an equal balance to the Shadow. He didn’t understand that knowledge and power, properly wielded, would best the mystical objects left over from the First Age. Those poor artifacts were limited by design. The power from the Bore, not so.

The archer was heavy on the Pattern. Lanfear didn’t need to search for her; her presence, crossing realities without the usual help, warped the unprepared substrate where she entered. Lanfear opened a gateway for skimming and let the platform find its own way; unguided, the platform spiraled to the marooned hero like a coin spun in a bowl. The center is the bottom.

“There you are,” she whispered, using her tricks of concealment, watching and listening. Of course the archer didn’t die; they always had the help they needed. Now she was building a new identity for herself.

“Maerion,” she said. “I’ll take that name. I was called that once.”

* * *

An earlier time:

The Dragonmount. Little left now but blood long soaked into the earth, steel long rusted onto the rock, bones stripped of their flesh. But _he_ had been born back into the world, as had she, and if the means were very different, there was no harm in examining the place for clues.

Or so she’d thought, but the meddlesome Aes Sedai was there too. Lanfear watched her find the bones, measure the hips, guess that this was a woman who had given birth. It would be easier if they weren’t on a stedding; but then you’d expect someone giving birth in a war zone to find their way to one.

Add to this the fact that the mountain was rumbling to erupt again. Leave it to _him_ to make a volcano as his last act alive. Tasteless and out of control – the mountain deserved to share his name.

She smelled the gases that meant the cap would blow soon and hurried to the edge of the stedding so she could Travel. But that Aes Sedai was still in there. It might be fun to see how she got herself out of this situation. Lanfear hiked back up to the cairn and was in the shadows beside the other’s camp when the mountain finally erupted.

The young Aes Sedai’s eyes went wild at the rain of ash, and she started guiding her horse downslope to the edge of the stedding. At the very edge, Lanfear called out to her. “Wait!”

She ran down the slope to meet her. “Wait. You … women channelers are weak in Earth and Fire. I read that in a book.”

The Aes Sedai’s eyes narrowed. “You’re the darkfriend from the library. Have you been following me?”

“I’m here for my own reasons.”

“Well, I don’t believe you,” the Aes Sedai said. “But I also don’t want to see someone die if I can avoid it. Come down the mountain with me.”

“And then you’ll capture me?” Lanfear said, thinking to smile proudly but frowning, taking a half step back; easy win or not she was tired of fighting.

“And then we’ll see.”

“It’s not a good idea,” Lanfear said. “The lava seems slow to the eye, but it creeps faster than your horse can run. And poison gas from the mountain will suffocate you even if you escape the lava.”

“Surely you don’t mean to stay?”

“The stedding is the safest place to be. It’s raised above the surrounding rock. The high ground will defend us from both threats, and there’s a spring here. Earth and Water to defend us against Air and Fire.”

“Why help me?” the Aes Sedai asked.

“Like you, I don’t want to see someone die if I can avoid it. Old enemies like us needn’t always come to blows.”

So they made a little camp, found shelter as best they could from the toxic wind, and set out to spend the night.

“Do you know who you remind me of?” the Aes Sedai said.

“I get that a lot.”

“I see why you go for it, though. You have her coloring.” A pause. “I’ll never understand why they took new names. Lanfear. Simple, frightening, perhaps, but easy enough to keep the name one is born with.”

“You know what her name was before? Mierin,” Lanfear said. “Not that different from yours.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“It’s not common knowledge among us either.”

“And I didn’t know you knew my name,” Moiraine said. “Are you sure you’re not following me?”

They passed the time as people do when camping out. Moiraine had a stones board and they did that. They played word games. Later Lanfear shared rare tidbits about the history of her time, handfuls of knowledge considered lost.

“I could think some of my colleagues would trade anything for the knowledge you possess,” Moiraine said to one piece of history.

“Let me know,” Lanfear said. “For every one I turn, I get their weight in gold.”

Moiraine snorted out a laugh and covered it with a cough. “I’ll save you the large ones,” she said. “I’m surprised you’re not afraid of me,” she said seriously.

Lanfear was having too much fun. It was a risky distraction. She thought about using the True Power to Travel, dangerous as it was. She could be gone in an instant. She was reluctant. This was a good moment, and the hangover of the True Power would mar it in her memory. Old as she was, she had learned it was best to hold the taste of a good wine on her tongue before rushing to the next meal.

“There’s not much you can do to me in here.” Lanfear waved her hand to indicate the stedding. “And even outside, you wouldn’t kill me. Anyway, I could knife you in your sleep.”

Moiraine thought about that. “I doubt either of us is planning to sleep.” They started another game of stones.

They did nap a little, later in the night, as the eerie red glow of the lava cracked and faded. Lanfear, having Traveled here, didn’t bring a blanket. She made up a story about her camp being upslope, likely destroyed in the eruption.

“We’ll nap til dawn,” Moiraine decided. “You can share mine. We’ll throw our knives downslope so we can’t kill each other.”

“I’ve learned many ways to kill,” Lanfear said soberly. “We’ll do as you say but I warn you it makes me no less dangerous. Trust nobody else like me this way, or you really will not wake.”

Lanfear didn’t sleep right away; she stared at the sky, wondering if she was too stubborn, if she had become the wrong person. She always carried her regrets. Once asleep she found Moiraine’s dreams and stood watch to make sure the Aes Sedai didn’t wake before her. They were in the stedding; there were no wards.

She wasn’t drawn inside the dreams; she had too much experience and discipline here for that. But she could have been, and that frightened her. The Aes Sedai’s dreams were _young_, her fantasies all false glory and her fears all victory and defeat. She wasn’t haunted by any crime of great weight, and Lanfear envied her.

In the morning it was safe to pick one’s way down the mountain on foot.

“What now,” Moiraine asked her.

“I’m very good at disappearing. You won’t see me again.”

“You’ll go your way, I’ll go mine?” From her tone, Moiraine was weighing the statement.

“You’ll go south, I’ll go north,” Lanfear said. “I don’t want to be nearby when you get your power back.” She bowed. “In the Second Age, this was a way for enemies to respectfully part, even if they might kill each other when next they met.”

“Or so you’ve heard,” Moiraine said.

“Or so I’ve heard.” Lanfear climbed up the dense sedge, looking back once; Moiraine hadn’t moved, was just watching her, and half-lifted her hand as if she wanted to say something, or in farewell.


	4. The Gown

One thing they had in common was a need for books. So it was no surprise that they met again in the palace library at Cairhien, with heavy rain making the windows dim and blur. Lanfear noticed her and thought about leaving, but decided to stay to see whether her enemy was any closer to finding _him_.

They didn’t speak at first. Aes Sedai were supposed to keep their emotions hidden, but Moiraine was young and Lanfear very good at reading people. In Moiraine’s face, she saw first happiness, then fear, then sadness, and finally unreadable Aes Sedai calm. Lanfear had outgrown her emotions; what Moiraine did with discipline, Lanfear just was.

Lanfear was afraid she would have to rebuff a hug, but the Cairhienin weren’t demonstrative in that way. Instead Moiraine bowed, as they had at their last parting, and she returned the bow.

“In the city for work?” Lanfear asked. Polished shelves spiraled up around them in the high, arched space, leaning in conspiratorially. Lamps made the light jump and twitch.

“You know that I still don’t know your name? Make one up if you want. I’ve been calling you the book thief in my mind and I wish I had something else.”

There were so many to pick from. “Beidomon.”

“A name of great significance to you, no doubt.” Moiraine frowned. “I can’t place the nation, but it sounds old. It doesn’t quite fit you.”

“My namesake wanted the name to be lost to history.”

“Another lost piece of history restored,” Moirain said, inclining her head. “My thanks to you. In answer to your question, some work and also a party.”

“Do you have time for lunch?” Lanfear said instinctively, like she might have to a research colleague a literal age ago. A moment after it came out she wasn’t sure what made her say it.

“I have to buy a dress.”

“Don’t do that, not for just one night. I’ll lend you one of mine.”

Moiraine frowned and looked up. “You’re a head taller than me.”

“I have a good tailor. Whatever you buy you’ll have to have altered anyway.”

Lanfear had a party of her own that night; a highly-placed darkfriend was hosting a recruiting event at his mansion in the city, and she meant to test for channelers. A long shot, but each new dreadlord they found early and trained was worth ten beginners when the cold war turned hot.

At her strength she could detect the ability in many who would never channel effectively. She roamed the galleries and lounges of the mansion, drawing near to one or the other, evaluating, touching the ones that showed real promise so a steward would mark their name and summon them back another time.

Finally she found what she was looking for: a strength in saidar as bright as a torch, coming down the front drive, entering the ballroom. Someone who would Travel, who could handle most battle weaves, who could learn quickly enough and then turn around and teach.

Her mark was evasive, moving through the party as if hunting something herself, hard to track. Lanfear was distracted; she smelled a familiar perfume that she couldn’t place, and someone in the crowd was wearing her colors, silver and black. It was like she was looking at herself in a mirror and then the mirror-image did something unexpected. It was like being two people at once.

The channeler moved to other parts of the house. She’d be back. Lanfear stayed in the ballroom, evaluating the few other members of the petty aristocracy who could channel enough to light a candle. She didn’t show them her true face; she didn’t want to intimidate. She was dressed in men’s livery and was projecting short hair, as if she were a highly-placed servant of the host.

The strong talent moved from the basement to the second floor. Perhaps she was a thief, working over the house.

“That sounds like a lot of power,” Lanfear said to a spice-buyer with the spark who was contemplating a move to long-distance trading.

“Power.” The buyer seemed to taste the word. “Yes, that is the heart of it, isn’t it. It’s not about the money anymore.”

“No it isn’t,” Lanfear said, touching her on the shoulder. Power, the ultimate boon to the weak. A steward nodded in the wings. They would collect this one another day. “You’ll excuse me.”

Lanfear dropped the disguise and went for a drink. Her hair blinked and twitched back into existence. Her face changed, not much, from ordinary to unique. Someone touched her shoulder.

“What are you doing here?” Moiraine whispered. “Someone has been channeling! This isn’t a safe place to talk.”

Lanfear turned and looked at her. The dress worked, patterned black with slashes of silver in the vents. She sometimes regretted the colors she had chosen, dark, night-themed, colorless, but Moiraine’s blue eyes, skin, the wood tone from her hair, cast them in a new light, connected them to the sky and growing things. Lanfear felt sad knowing the feelings under these colors were unreachable for her. “Would anywhere be safe,” she breathed.

But Moiraine took her question at face value. “Let’s go.” She dragged them to the center of the floor, blending in among the other dancers.

“If you’re at this party, you’re committed,” Moiraine said. “I’ll have to take you in the next time I see you. But my mission here is too important. You get one last escape.”

“Work and a party,” Lanfear murmured, leaning close and keeping her voice low. “You didn’t say the party was the work.”

“It was none of your business!” Moiraine hissed. “Or so I hoped. I see that I was wrong.” They spun together with the music. Other pairs around them moved to make space.

“Are you sure you’re not following me?” Lanfear asked, remembering another time.

“You must leave. I can’t protect you here.” Moiraine was angry, half at the situation, half at herself for getting into it.

The host of the party joined them. “My lady,” he said, bowing. “May I know your companion?”

“Nobody of consequence,” Moiraine said. “A friend of lesser rank I met in the palace library.”

The man’s eyes widened in fear. “I –” Then he noticed who she was. “You’re Moiraine Damodred. I sent an invitation to your cousin’s house, but you’re –” His eyes flickered to her hands, to a ring there. “Where did you get that?”

“I took it from your house, my lord.”

“I didn’t think your kind stole.” He made a motion with his hands behind his back. Armed men made a circle around them. One handed the host his sword; he held the scabbard without belting it on.

“It’s not forbidden by our oaths. Nor is it stealing to take back what’s ours.”

“It’s my death to let it go. I’ll be holding on to it.” His eyes shifted. “Unless, my lady, you have a different solution.”

“There is no other solution here,” Moiraine said.

Lanfear stepped forward.

“Don’t,” Moiraine said. “You don’t know who this is. He’s highly placed, he might even be a channeler. I’ll bring you out with me, somehow.”

Fear returned to the host’s face. “You don’t know what you’re saying,” he said to Moiraine.

“Say nothing,” Lanfear said. The host’s mouth snapped shut as if wired.

“I told you,” Moiraine said. “Get behind me. I’m more formidable than I –”

“Sorry for this,” Lanfear said. She didn’t want to use compulsion, or to damage anyone here. She put Moiraine to sleep, gently, using little enough Power that she might not notice who it came from.

“Get behind me,” Moiraine said faintly as she collapsed. Lanfear caught her around the waist, seeming to hold her whole weight easily, using support from Air where needed.

The host of the party would report this up the ranks. So be it. Perhaps the others wouldn’t know what to make of it; Lanfear herself couldn’t explain it. If they saw weakness in her, they would find a way to kill her. Not from anger, or to punish, but from scavenger instinct to see the weak as dead and begin eating. But she was too tired to hide.


	5. Old Friends

Lanfear took them to the stedding on the Dragonmount. She had a sleeping Moiraine fixed in her saddle with Air. She had to Compel the horse to walk through the gateway.

It was a new moon but up here the stars were close enough to touch, close enough to light the way. The night was a spangled veil parted by the mountain’s sharp peak.

At the edge of the stedding, she joined Moiraine in the saddle and they rode in together. Once through the shock of separation, the frigid border-line, the weave faded and Moiraine’s forced sedation gave way to normal sleep. The bonds of Air dissolved and Lanfear had to hold her tightly to keep her upright. It was cold.

Moiraine’s eyes opened and she gasped. “Where –” She coughed. “Let me down.”

“Wait for those pins and needles to fade or you’ll fall.”

Moiraine sat up straighter for a second, then gave up and leaned back again.

In due course Lanfear helped her down. Moiraine saw the peak and got her bearings. It was too dark to read her face. “How did we get here?” Moiraine asked. “No, that’s not the question. How long have I been unconscious? Why do I still have this.” She looked down at the stolen ring.

Lanfear looked at it. “A trinket. A channeler of middle strength would be better off without it.”

“More knowledge from the past. So that was not the right question either.” She pondered. “Why aren’t we dead? Your side punishes betrayal as harshly as ours.”

“Not always,” Lanfear said. “Infighting in the middle ranks can be encouraged.”

“Are you in the middle ranks? I thought you low-ranked –” Moiraine gasped and covered her mouth. She took one step back, against her will.

Lanfear exhaled a heavy breath. “That’s the right question.”

“The lord at the party. He said ‘my lady’. He wasn’t talking to me.”

“I brought some food from the mansion,” Lanfear said. “Things that will keep, some grain for your horse –”

“You’re going to kill me.” Moiraine said it without fear. Lanfear knew she herself would be afraid if faced with overwhelming power. She wondered if that was what she felt at Shayol Ghul. They had always thought the fear was a mystical effect, but perhaps it was just a reaction of the strong to something stronger. “Why bring me here?”

“I don’t have to kill you,” Lanfear said, not knowing if the words were true as she said them. If the others did it, they would do it slow. She couldn’t get enough air. “I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. It came as a hoarse whisper. “I can make you forget. Do you want that?”

“Do _you_ want that?” Moiraine said before thinking. She stopped. She touched the silk of her borrowed dress, still warm in the cold air. “Do your worst, but leave me my memories.”

“I’ve already done my worst,” Lanfear said. “I hope. Long ago.” She turned her back. “I’m leaving. You go your way, I’ll go mine.” She didn’t look back.

* * *

She Traveled to a place she had found after waking, a place she knew in her old life. A skeleton of fluted arches deep in abandoned tundra. It had been a city once, and by luck, one street of her favorite district survived enough to recognize. Behind the bar she recovered, packed in ice, two bottles of something really good.

She had saved them for the right moment. She was hoping it would be a celebration but a drink is a drink.

She Traveled again. Another continent. She landed outside the damane pen. She came here to talk with them sometimes. They understood things about being very old that the young missed. Light flickered around her, and she was wearing a silver collar, a leash.

She brushed the woven silver leash, rocking the illusion like a stone in a pond. It was her color, a false prison of her own making. This chain could be made to vanish with a thought, a wish. Her war, her power, even her name, were prisons. Were they illusions, too? Maybe they could be dispelled with a wish, if she just allowed herself.

Her hand paused at the door to the pen. She had, in her own way, been imprisoned. She was, in her own way, a servant to a harsh master. But not like they were. They wouldn’t understand.

She Traveled again. Ebou Dar, the Rahad, a place polite people don’t go. She wasn’t feeling polite. She adjusted her disguise so she would seem like a weak channeler, so she would seem like a villager in town, and did the same to the bottles, turning them into something from this age.

She knocked on the back door as was the custom here. Light footsteps clattered around the house within. She knocked again and the sounds headed towards the door. A gray-haired face answered, smiling when she saw who it was. “Cormalinde, yes? Come in.”

Reanne Corly, whose very job title was Eldest, was the best this world could do in age-mates. If their missions were very different, if their allegiances were incompatible, there was still much in common between them. Lanfear had thought about tempting her to switch sides so she could have someone to talk to, but Reanne was frugal and selfless, not the type to care for power. And the centuries under her belt made immortality a weak bribe.

Lanfear set the bottles on the kitchen counter. Reanne looked at them, and then looked again. “These are very good bottles. They must have cost –”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “My treat.”

The wine made her think of the last time she had drunk it, just after the war started, before people knew which side she had taken. A heady time, and a sad one; the last time she had seen many of the people she came up with. But the wine also did its job.

Reanne didn’t waste time asking for details. She assumed that what she couldn’t infer wasn’t for sharing. Lanfear liked this shorthand style of conversation. She hated explaining herself to the very young. She wondered if Reanne saw anything through her mask, and sometimes hoped she did. Lately Lanfear wasn’t trying very hard to be secret.

“That was a good wine,” Reanne said after the second bottle was gone. Lanfear nodded. “I’m going to keep drinking,” Reanne said. Lanfear nodded as Reanne went down to her cellar. “Help,” she heard. Lanfear knelt by the cellar door and pulled as Reanne pushed from underneath and they got the small barrel onto the kitchen floor.

Reanne poured herself a small cup of it. She gave her guest an empty cup. Lanfear didn’t want to drink anything else yet. She wanted to hold the taste of that ancient, familiar vintage on her tongue.

Reanne leaned back and emptied the tumbler. “When was the last time you really cried,” she asked in a neutral tone.

Lanfear combed her hair back, careless of how it would affect the illusion. “It feels like an age ago,” she said. “And that’s the truth.”

“I stopped, myself, some time ago,” Reanne said. “The world won’t change for tears.” She watched her guest. “But I’ve started to wonder if I miss it.”

Lanfear had been a child the last time she cried. Under a hundred, probably under twenty. She realized that she wasn’t going to get something she wanted. An award, a position. She hid her tears from everyone and when she was done, she sketched out a path to power that would get her the thing she lost. There were other things she wanted more, but this one had been taken from her and that couldn’t be allowed.

“I don’t miss it,” she said. “It led me to folly.”

“There are many things I miss from the old days,” Reanne said carefully, taking another thumb in the tumbler.

“It has been almost as long,” Lanfear said, “since I really laughed.”

“I’ve found the two are linked,” Reanne said. “Maybe it’s just a lack of novelty in these times.”

“I’ve made my share of mistakes,” Lanfear said, and Reanne nodded. “I was strong-willed then and I didn’t listen to counsel.”

“I only see you when you come to town,” Reanne said, “but you seem strong now, too.”

“I’ve lost faith,” Lanfear said. “I’m not as sure as I was.”

“The young, in their arrogance,” Reanne said, draining the second cup, “think that strength is for making changes. They don’t know what it costs us to just stand up under the weight of our regrets.”

Lanfear raised her empty glass. Reanne raised her own in a toast. To Lanfear, it signified going through the motions when you have nothing left inside. It fit the occasion.

She dumped the empty bottles outside one of Moghedien’s hideouts, knowing how mad it would make her, knowing how she would smell the corks and feel envy. It should have made her feel better but didn’t.


	6. The Doorway

She laid waste to the wagons but had forgotten why she was angry. Yes, _he_ did something to taunt her. The Pattern brought her here, but being partly of the shadow now, it felt sometimes like there were two of her. It was hard to keep conscious track of the intentions and motivations the Wheel expected from her.

The other half of her, the one that was free of the Pattern’s influence, had vaguely sensed this meeting, had dressed up for it: the white silk, the silver belt, rescued from a ruin, the silver crescents in her hair, commissioned to match the ones her sister had worn at her wedding.

She needed time to think. A wall of Air stopped most of them. Needles of Fire to discourage those who forced their way inside. _He_ cut some of her weaves.

Lews Therin, called Telamon after she knew him; she had taught him that. “Spirit woven so, with fire and earth. There.” He came to her dorm room when they were a year apart as students, to practice this trick. No wonder they knew each other’s moves now.

_She_ was there of course, beginning to cut through the wall of Air. Lanfear lifted her out of the way, gently, getting her far from the field of battle without hurting her. Even like this, it was extraordinary to see her again.

A misty gray dome came into being, enclosing him and her and the wagons, shutting out all not already within. It reminded Lanfear of her life. She hoped Moiraine was safe outside it, was well.

She remembered their fourth meeting, their last meeting (before this one, which would truly be the last).

* * *

A room in an inn; nice for what it was, rustic at best to civilized eyes. Lanfear had waited for her there for hours, passing the time rehearsing the conversation and second-guessing herself. She wasn’t usually early to things and didn’t like it, but she had been too nervous to stay at her headquarters.

“You’ve shielded me,” Moiraine said. “You never did that before.”

“I don’t want to fight. You – one of us could get hurt,” Lanfear said. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Why _are_ you here?” Moiraine asked.

“That’s the wrong question,” Lanfear said. She was hesitating; it wasn’t her style. “A friend told me I should come.” She forgot how she had planned to say it. “And I’ve delayed, but you’ll find _him_ soon, and this seemed like the last –”

“A friend who knows your real name?”

Nobody had interrupted her in a long time. “Which is the mask, and which is my real name?” She didn’t know, she would listen to wisdom if Moiraine knew. “I’ve forgotten. I didn’t think we’d be fighting so long.”

“You and I?” Moiraine said.

“The shadow,” Lanfear said. “The light. Three thousand years.” Saying the number out loud made it more real than it usually was to her. She had risked much, and gained much, but what she gave up mattered the most to her now. “I thought things would go back to normal afterwards,” she whispered, wondering if it was a lie.

“Is that what you came here to say?”

She was so brave. Why wasn’t she frightened? Lanfear had the upper hand, and she felt frightened. “Join me. Rule with me.” It wasn’t what she had planned to say. “You’re not as strong as _he_ is but we can make it work.”

Moiraine sat on the bed, never taking her eyes off her guest. “You want too much of me.”

“Yes.” Lanfear couldn’t get her thoughts in order. She never babbled like this, not around _him_, not even at Shayol Ghul. “Did you ever think shielding someone is almost like being linked? I’ve always thought that. Sometimes thoughts and feelings slide through.”

“What is coming through?” Moiraine asked, quiet, careful.

“It feels –” Lanfear closed her eyes to understand it. “You’re calling to someone.” Wind moved her hair and she opened her eyes.

She turned carefully. Moiraine’s Warder was behind her, in striking stance, sword in hand. Something had stopped his sword an inch too soon. The steel lay across her neck, not quite touching.

“You stopped him?” Moiraine asked.

Lanfear put him in Air to truly stop the sword, but left him where he was.

“You did,” the Warder said. Moiraine’s eyes widened. “You screamed through the bond,” he said. “If you had felt it you would have stopped.”

Lanfear went to sit next to Moiraine on the bed, then thought better of it and went to a chair by the wall, bringing one leg up and resting her chin on it. Moiraine pulled her legs up under her and shifted so they were face to face.

“I didn’t intend to,” Moiraine said. “I’m older now. I have more regrets.” She shook her head. “Life isn’t as clear as it was.”

It was the last thing Lanfear expected her to say. “Older!” She laughed, hugging her knee for balance, caught by surprise and for a moment delighted. She blinked and was flushed, suddenly irrationally angry. “You don’t know _anything_ about regrets. You’re an infant.”

Moiraine mirrored her anger. “What do you _want_ me to know?”

“That’s the right question,” Lanfear said, and then hesitated.

“You’ve never been afraid to say whatever you wanted to my face.”

“I wonder if you ever knew what I wanted,” Lanfear said. “I wonder if I did.” She had a men’s shirt over her dress as a jacket. White shirt, black dress; close enough to her colors to serve. She reached inside the shirt and found a folded paper, stamped in wax. “Here.”

“A letter?” Moiraine tried to open it and couldn’t. “Sealed. Clever.”

“It will open when it’s time.”

“Why write me a letter?” Moiraine had a letter knife on her person, not unusually. She dug at the seal, then the paper. Neither yielded. “Tell me now.”

“These are things I wish you to think on; not now; when you have time for thinking.”

“What’s to stop me from throwing it in a fire?” It wouldn’t burn. “Or dropping it into the ocean.”

“One of us may live long into the future. It may be me.” Moiraine heard this and gave her an unreadable look, but was at least paying attention. “If it’s you,” Lanfear said, “I want you to wait until you understand something about regret, then read this. Remember me, even if not fondly.”

“A command? I owe you no allegiance.”

“If you want to,” Lanfear said. “If you decide to.” She stood. “Farewell.

She got to the door. “Wait, before you go,” Moiraine said, getting up as well. “Thank you. For the dress, I never thanked you.”

“I hope you made good use of it.”

There was a cloak thrown over the chair Lanfear had been sitting on. It was blue, Moiraine’s color, but the lining was silver and black, the pattern familiar. “As a reminder,” Moiraine said.

“Of what?”

“I honestly don’t know. To be careful.” Moiraine flashed raised eyebrows, almost a wink. “Or not too careful. Or everything.”

“You can already feel the shield weakening,” Lanfear said, halfway through the door. “It will unravel on its own in a few moments. By then I’ll be gone.”

“Nothing lasts too long,” Moiraine said. “You want to say to each moment: stay, stay.” Lanfear went. “Stay,” Moiraine whispered.

* * *

Back in the moment, _he_ knelt before her, in a way the Pattern must assume she wanted. But she had never thought of this or asked for this. She had her own power and could seek the things she wanted without being shoehorned into place like a chess piece.

Looking at the doorway behind her, she understood Moiraine’s plan. Some sort of object of power. It was naive but it might have worked. She smiled. Brave, ambitious, desperate, bold, ingeneous – this is how you fight someone stronger than you are. Lanfear had never known how to do that.

She hoped Moiraine was outside the dome, but she also hoped she was inside it. Lanfear’s eyes were bright. She wrinkled up her lips to hold back the smile.

She still thought of him as Lews Therin. She hadn’t learned his new name. It didn’t matter to her work. They fenced, nothing more. They volleyed the same order of attacks from their choreographed training, and he parried, sweating. Perhaps for him this was novel, or perhaps he remembered.

And then Moiraine stands beside her on the wagon. They had both expected this end, though only one of them had seen it. “Here I am at last,” Lanfear says. Moiraine had prepared herself to do this but there are tears from her eyes that won't stop.

Lanfear feels happiness, so much she could float away, and wonders how that can be. She thought she had outgrown it. Something is wrong with her eyes; she can’t focus them. She touches her face and feels hot tears there.

Moiraine takes her by the shoulders and steps with her into the doorway. Time is moving strangely. In slow motion, it feels like an embrace. Lanfear has needed a hug for a literal age, and the tears come harder. She doesn’t think about defeat. She’s factored in defeat for a long time. She’s tired.

Moiraine tilts her into the doorway. “So this is the moment,” Lanfear says. She gives in to it. She is being carried over the threshold.

Face to face, they topple through the doorframe. White light swallows everything. “This time,” Moiraine says, “I’m going your way too.”


End file.
